The Dog Ate My Homework
by The Literary Dragon
Summary: Kagome's jichan always makes up excuses to explain her frequent school absences. One day she decides to try something different... the truth. Rated for violence to worms


_It's another one-shot from The Literary Dragon! Cute and funny without a whole lot of plot. Hope you enjoy it!_

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Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha

THE DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK

Kagome stood slowly, stretching to ease the kinks in her back from sitting still for so long. Absently, she gathered her books into a neat little pile, half of her mind already on what needed to be done as soon as she got home from school.

"Hurry up, Kagome!" Yuka waved to her from the doorway of the classroom.

"We'll stop at Wacdonald's on the way home," Eri added, "and you can tell us more about that rude, violent jerk you're seeing."

Kagome sighed. She didn't know what had possessed her to confide in her three friends in the first place. It was too late now, they got more entertainment out of her supposed love life than she did and were determined to meddle. That's what you got for having friends.

"I don't really have time today, guys." Kagome swung the strap of her pack over her shoulder. "I have someplace to be."

"Another doctor's appointment, Kagome?" Ayumi frowned at her in concern. "Are you sure you should have been in school today if you don't feel well?"

"I feel fine. It's just that I promised someone that I would meet him after school. We'll have to get together some other time." If she kept moving, maybe she could keep her friends from trying to set her up on another date with Hojo. All three kept insisting that he was sweet, good-looking, and stable and would be so much better than a violent, overprotective jerk. She liked Hojo and was flattered by all of the attention, but the special spark that made her heart beat faster whenever she thought of Inuyasha just wasn't there.

"A moment, Miss Higurashi." The teacher looked up from the papers he was grading, his bland tone conveying more of a demand than a request. He looked over at the three girls hovering in the doorway. "Don't you girls have someplace to be?" Kagome shot a helpless look at her three friends as they took the not so subtle hint and left with only a few backwards glances.

Swallowing hard, Kagome approached the desk. She searched the older man's face, trying to determine from his expression what kind of trouble she might be in. Her experience with teachers had led her to expect that they didn't ask to chat privately unless there was something wrong.

"Please sit." Kagome dragged a chair over and, letting her bag slide to the floor, sat on the very edge of the seat.

Without a word, he returned to the current paper he was marking. Kagome shifted uncomfortably, but didn't interrupt. After a long silence, broken only by the scratching of the teacher's pen, he finished what he was doing and pushed the pile of papers to one side.

The teacher regarded her over the tops of his glasses. "Don't look so apprehensive, Miss Higurashi. Your grandfather has kept everyone well informed of your recent bout of illnesses and I understand that some school absences will be unavoidable." Abruptly, he leaned forward and smacked the flat of his hand on the desk. Kagome jumped. "But I expect your full attention when you are here! There is no excuse for not turning in your homework. So, please explain to me why the latest assignment, worth one quarter of your grade, is not here." He indicated the pile of papers.

"Um… " Kagome frantically tried to think of something. She just wasn't as good at this sort of thing as her grandfather. "My dog ate it?"

The teacher sat back with a very pained expression on his face. "Can't you think up something a little more original than that, Miss Higurashi?"

"You want the truth?" Kagome tentatively ventured.

He sighed and nodded. "As boring as that might be, I think it would be best."

Kagome closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she made a decision. He wanted the truth; well, she would give him the truth.

"It all started two days ago… "

* * *

Inuyasha leaped from the roof to land in front of Kagome who was sitting on the porch outside Kaede's hut. She had a book open in her lap and was chewing absently on the end of her pen as she read. Every few minutes, she wrote something in her notebook.

"Why are you wasting your time with that junk?" Inuyasha snatched the book out of Kagome's hand and frowned at the lines of text. "We should be searching for more shards."

"Give me that," Kagome grabbed the book back and smoothed the pages that Inuyasha had wrinkled. "I have an important assignment to finish. Besides, everyone else is gone for a few days, or had you forgotten."

"I remember." Inuyasha flopped into a cross-legged seat next to the girl. "Sango took Kirara and made another trip to the remains of her village. Like that's going to help. She'll just come back all moody and depressed and Miroku will get slapped more than usual."

"Everything Sango knew was destroyed by Naraku," Kagome reminded him with an edge to her voice. "Of course she wants to return and pay her respects to the resting place of her friends and family."

Inuyasha snorted. "She should pay her respects by helping us find the shards before we finally kill Naraku. Dwelling on the past doesn't get you anywhere."

Kagome glared at the insensitive hanyou. "Not all of us are made out of stone like you. And before you demand to know where everybody else is, Kaede had an emergency to deal with in the next village and Miroku went along for protection. They took Shippou with them."

"So that's why the runt hasn't been underfoot for a while."

Kagome elected not to answer that comment in favor of continuing with her schoolwork. Inuyasha watched her write with barely concealed impatience. He tapped his claws on the ground, providing an irritating counterpoint to the scratching of her pen.

Finally, Kagome couldn't take anymore and threw her pen down in disgust. "Why don't you go find something useful to do instead of hovering over me?" she demanded. "Your staring is driving me nuts!"

Inuyasha flinched at the sudden outburst, immediately responding with a sharp retort of his own. "I'm not leaving you unprotected! You'd probably manage to get yourself kidnapped or possessed or something!"

"I am not helpless!" Kagome shot to her feet, towering over him. "I don't need you hovering over me every second of the day!"

"I wouldn't have to if you weren't always getting into trouble," he shouted, jumping up to regain the slight advantage of height.

Kagome narrowed her eyes at him. "I do not attract trouble! None of that was my fault! Kouga apologized for kidnapping me and nobody has tried to possess me in months and--"

Inuyasha abruptly clapped a hand over her mouth, ignoring her furious glare as he took a quick glance around them. "Be quiet for a minute. I thought I smelled something." Kagome's eyes grew round and she ceased struggling. He sniffed the air delicately, shifting his hand from Kagome's mouth to the hilt of Tetsusaiga.

His furry ears twitched and, now that she wasn't yelling, Kagome could hear the sounds of something rather large crashing through the forest towards them. Months of fighting youkai had honed her reactions. She darted into the hut and snatched up her bow and arrows, returning to stand by Inuyasha's side and stare into the distance.

"I sense a shard," she whispered. The youkai was making so much racket that it probably wouldn't have heard her if she shouted.

"Great." Inuyasha stepped in front of her, flexing his claws. "Maybe this day won't be a total waste after all." That was when the noises ceased. Inuyasha rotated his ears back and forth, trying to locate the youkai, one hand gripping the hilt of his sword. Kagome started when a bird launched itself from a nearby bush with a loud whirring of wings.

The ground in front of them erupted, spraying chunks of dirt in all directions. Kagome took an involuntary step back when she got a good look at the youkai which was now towering above them.

"Why did it have to be a worm?" She stared with disgust at the pink, slimy creature. It twisted its blind head from side to side.

"I sense Shikon shards," it rumbled. Under other circumstances, Kagome might have been fascinated at how it managed to talk so clearly when she couldn't see anything that could pass for a mouth. "Where are the shards? Give them to me!"

"Huh!" Inuyasha removed his hand from the hilt of his sword. "That thing is as soft and pink as a newborn pup. I won't even need Tetsusaiga for this. Kagome, where's the shard?"

"It's in the head. Or maybe that's the tail. With worms it's hard to tell."

"Iron Reaver!" Inuyasha leaped for the unprotected body, claws extended. Quicker than should have been possible, it withdrew into the ground.

"Damn! Can you tell me where it is, Kagome?"

Kagome lowered her bow, scanning the surrounding area. Inuyasha growled under his breath, intently watching the ground for any movement.

"Inuyasha, behind you!"

Fast reflexes got the hanyou out of the way as the worm youkai exploded out of the ground right where he had been standing only seconds before. Inuyasha slashed with another attack, but missed again, his claws sinking into the soft dirt the youkai left behind.

It shot out of the ground again, coming up between the girl and the hanyou. Kagome yelped as the disgusting creature hovered only a few feet away. She stepped back and stumbled over her open notebook, landing painfully on her rear, her bow tumbling from her loosened grasp.

Abruptly, the creature shrieked in agony and writhed away from her. Kagome's eyes widened as she got a look at Inuyasha clinging to its body and gouging long furrows with his claws.

"Hurry up and shoot it!" Inuyasha shouted, tightening his hold as the youkai convulsed. "Do something before it decides to dive back into the ground!"

Kagome scrambled after her bow and hurriedly notched an arrow. She tried to sight on the creature, but its constant twisting made it hard to find a target. Inuyasha's yelling grew more intense the longer she delayed. Muttering a swift prayer to whoever might be listening, Kagome loosed her arrow.

The arrow arced upwards with an incandescent white glow. The youkai's dim brain finally made the connection that it could retreat underground to escape its tormentor. The sacred arrow caught it squarely just below where Inuyasha had been clinging as it turned to flee. It exploded into slimy pink chunks of flesh, raining smelly black worm blood over everything.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome dropped her bow, frantically searching for some sign of the hanyou. He didn't get purified along with the worm, did he? "Inuyasha!"

"Ugh." Inuyasha trudged over from the woodpile he had landed in when he jumped off the youkai just before Kagome's arrow hit. "That was disgusting." He bent down and ripped a piece of paper out of Kagome's notebook, using it to wipe some of the black gunk off of his face.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome tackled him in a fierce hug. "You're all right! I was so worried!"

"Of course I'm all right." Inuyasha patted the back of her head gingerly. "It would take more than some silly old worm to hurt me."

Kagome sniffed, suddenly aware that she, Inuyasha, and the surrounding area were coated in a stinky black substance. Making a face, she stepped back and looked down at her ruined uniform. It was then that she noticed that the gunk also coated her schoolbooks and Inuyasha was holding a familiar piece of paper in his hand.

"Inuyasha," she said sweetly, "that wouldn't happen to be my homework assignment you're holding, would it?"

"Is it?" Inuyasha stared guiltily at the paper. "It does look kind of familiar."

Fire leapt into Kagome's eyes. "It's covered in black gunk! I can't turn it in like this!"

"You're the one who blew up the worm! This isn't my fault!"

"Well, if you had gotten rid of it right away, I wouldn't have had to blow it up!"

"You're always getting into trouble and I always have to save you!"

"Fine! I'm going home where I won't be such a burden!"

"No, you're not! We have shards to find!"

Kagome stomped over to a quivering blob of flesh and dug a small shard out of it. Marching back to Inuyasha, she waved the shard in his face. "There's your shard! I've earned a break and I'm going home!"

"No, you're not!"

* * *

"We had a big fight. I sat him a few times, and then came home."

Kagome finished her story, stared at her tightly clenched hands, and waited. The creaking of a chair and a long sigh made her look up. Leaning back, the teacher rubbed his forehead.

"You… sat him," he said in the flat tone of someone who isn't really sure he wants to hear more. "Is this Inuyasha a dog or a person?"

Kagome shifted uncomfortably on the hard seat. "Both. Neither. He's a… he's a dog hanyou -- half youkai and half human."

"And he just sat because you told him to." He took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. Taking a handkerchief from his front pocket, he carefully cleaned them before putting them back on.

"He wears a magic necklace," Kagome clarified. "Whenever I say the word, he crashes to the ground. And then he yells at me."

"I see." Resting his arms on the desk, he regarded her with a weary expression. "Are you getting enough sleep?"

"Sir?"

"Your bouts of dementia are getting worse." He rummaged in a drawer and withdrew a piece of paper and a pen. Kagome gaped at him. Dementia? "I'm writing you a note excusing you from classes for the rest of the week. Go home, get some rest, and take your medicine." He shoved the slip of paper at her. Kagome picked it up numbly and pushed it into her pocket.

Suddenly he smiled at her. "Don't look so worried. These things happen. Maybe you'll be feeling better on Monday." He bent over his stack of papers, clearly dismissing her.

Kagome rose to her feet and wandered out of the room. Weird when a teacher would rather believe an old man's lies than the rather far-fetched truth. She smiled ruefully. However, the truth did often sound like some bizarre fairy tale. She'd better get home before Inuyasha came looking for her.

* * *

The teacher looked up briefly when Kagome left the room. He chuckled to himself -- the fantasy worlds young teenage girls created for themselves. Hopefully, she would be more grounded in reality the next time she came to class.

A cold wind rustled the papers on his desk. Looking up sharply, he frowned to see that the window was open the tiniest bit. He was sure that it had been shut. Getting up, he walked over to close it and saw something out of the corner of his eye.

A red and silver blur darted across the yard. For a moment it paused, but was gone before he could get a good look. Shaking his head, he returned to his desk and started gathering up his papers. Maybe he was working too hard.

That had looked like a teenage boy with dog ears on top of his head. But that was impossible.

Yep, definitely working too hard.

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_What do you think?_

**Food for thought:** I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking so good either.


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